Victor Conte Interview

"Lance Armstrong Is As Guilty As A $3 Bill"

So how does an athlete mask the usage or hide it if/when the authorities come to test them?

VC: Let me say that there are little things that athletes can do. As an example — I’m going to later apply this to somebody like a Bautista or a Major League Baseball player — during the Tour de France, these guys know when they are going to be tested. If they are not tested by a certain time, then what they do is re-infuse their system with red-blood cells. They are at night using testosterone gels, creams and patches. So what the rumor is — and I actually believe this — about Floyd Landis and how he tested positive is because they use very small 2.5-milligram patches, and since they shave their balls, after the stage that day, they put a patch on their balls. When they wake up in the morning, they take it off and shower. They test negative. It clears in a matter of hours. Well, the rumor was that Landis had a horrible Stage 16, and he got drunk and forgot to take the patch off and got a positive test.

How does that apply to baseball? These guys have days off, right? Well, is it possible that a little "topping off" occurs because they don’t test them on their days off? They are traveling, and they test them at games in the locker room. So what do you do? You play one game on a Sunday, and you’ve got a Monday off, so Sunday night you use a little testosterone. By the time you show up at the ballpark, either on the road or at home on Tuesday, that testosterone has cleared your system. And you got a great day and a half of healing.

Since you brought up the Tour de France, what’s your opinion on Lance Armstrong? He’s in the news again, courtesy of former teammate Tyler Hamilton.

VC: The bottom line is — all this is my opinion — but I believe he’s as guilty as a $3 bill.

I don’t think you’d be the only one to think that. They say where there is smoke there is fire, and I think the fire alarm in the neighbor’s house has even gone off.

VC: It’s blaring.

Lance is one guy, but again, if I’m playing the role of the casual spectator, I look at a guy like Brock Lesnar and wonder. With your trained eye, is there anybody you see, maybe when you’re watching Sportscenter, that makes you suspicious?

VC: Once again, it’s my opinion and only my opinion, but, yes, I’m highly suspicious of a lot of athletes. Am I highly suspicious of Brock Lesnar? Yes, I am. Am I highly suspicious of Usain Bolt? Yes, I am.

Part of this has to do with whether they are in a sport where I believe there are huge loopholes in testing or if they come from a country — in Bolt’s case, like Jamaica — where I really do not think they have effective testing. UFC does not have effective testing. Boxers — in the world of boxing, everybody is suspect. They do not have effective testing in place. Manny Pacquiao is highly suspicious. Floyd Mayweather is highly suspicious. Anytime you come from a lower weight division and you come to a higher weight division — as many as eight weight divisions — and you retain speed and power, it’s suspicious.

I have always said that I believe that there has always been a rampant use of performance-enhancing drugs for over five decades. This didn’t start with BALCO; this has been going on a very long time. In the 50s, it began with John Ziegler, who was part of the weightlifting team that went to the Eastern bloc, and they got defeated by the Russian athletes. He came back and helped develop a very powerful oral steroid called Dianabol. Then it filtered into track and field, and the NFL, and then in the 80s, in Major League Baseball.

Is it less now? It certainly is. But are there ways to duck and dodge and use these powerful anabolic steroids that give you such a gain that is sustained over the period of a season? Absolutely.